Sergius and Bacchus were Roman soldiers honored as martyrs. They were discovered to be Christians when they refused to worship the god Jupiter. Bacchus was beaten to death first, but according to legend he appeared to Sergius the next day in his prison cell and promised him: If I have been taken from you in body, I am still with you in the bond of union. Sergius was tortured and killed soon after. The two men had been united in a rite called adelphopoiesis, which some scholars believe may have been a type of same-sex union.

I am amazed that there is a Saint with the same name as a pagan god. That is why I clicked on this lol. Bacchus and Dionysus are the same Greco/roman god concept and Christianity has a Saint Dionysus and a Saint Bacchus.

This is still so ammusing to me and the fact that this Bacchus could be considered a symbol of same sex love is ironic because the God Dionysus/Bacchus is known to have same sex (and opposite sex ) relations.

Excuse my little thingy here I am more entertained by the fact that names repeat in different religions and still find it hard to understand all the hate with different religions when things like this happen. Sorry about my tangent.... I'm off.

These are interesting. I don't get to hear very much about gay people in history. These days a lot of homophobic folks would like us to believe that gay people are a new phenomenon that sprung up out of nowhere as part of an evil conspiracy. These short little history lessons are a good way of reminding us that not only have gay people been around throughout the span of human history, but have also been a part of it too, influencing it's events just as much as straight men.

This is beautiful. Also, to refute an above comment, there is no way for us to know that "they weren't gay," or that they were. What is clear is that they shared a very deep bond, and that's all we can know.

This is beautiful. I love this whole series. Contrary to the excuses some apologists make, there have been many gay Christians and saints throughout history. St. Anselm is a prominent example. Even Jesus had his beloved John.

some historians are so desperate to prove modern political points that they grasp at straws. There were comrades, not lovers. Something which hardly exists in the modern world, murdered by the radical purtians and just as much so by their ultra-liberal counter-parts. Like Roland and Oliver, the love of two men bound by common mission and friendship, nothing to do with sex. All too common for most of history, of anything a better variation of love than the degenerate form that survives in the modern world. And to go though history taking examples of it and distorting it, naming it as something other than it is is one of the great tragedies of modern liberal history. They were not lovers and until very recently there has never been any suggestion that they had been, what they had was more than that, higher than that and theres no reason to drag them down to it. And again bloody good pic, i like the style of it and how within the it the clothes look as though once real. Great work.

I'm aware this comment is very old, but I can't quite believe your arrogance, that you would come into another artist's personal space and try to dictate what that artist should and shouldn't draw--and in the same breath imply that there is a type of love that's "degenerate" simply because it's not to your personal liking.

Its a little absurd to argue over whether two men who had allegedly undergone a "rite of brotherhood", and who at any rate, died many, many centuries ago were physically intimate or not. There is simply no way to know for certain. All that is revealed in such a discussion - regardless of the position you take on it - is your own bias and preferences. It cannot be denied that puritanical homophobia on the one hand and the fully justified fight for the right to exist by Queer folk on the other, have, in a sense, worked hand in hand to destroy camaraderie as it has existed historically in the West and still exists in non-Western parts of the world...HOWEVER that does not mean, as you suggest, that two men adding a sexual dimension to their relationship is a "dragging down" or distortion of their love. It may not be what you would choose, but this notion that anything a given individual might not personally enjoy must be considered "bad" or "evil" or should be politically opposed by that individual, is in fact, the illegitimate child of the very puritanical world view you label "radical" and the boomer selfishness and self absorption that gave rise to their particular, idiosyncratic form of liberalism - which you also don't seem to have much love for.